Airline security questioned after plane hijacking

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — Colombia questioned airline security measures and ordered an immediate review after a father in a wheelchair dodged a checkpoint and smuggled grenades onto a plane.

The father and his son surrendered five hours after commandeering the Aires airliner around midday Monday after it departed from the southern city of Florencia on a flight headed to Colombia's capital, Bogota.

The plane, with at least 24 people aboard, including an American, landed in Bogota after the hijackers made a radio call to air traffic control indicating they had taken control, said Gen. Edgar Lesmez, chief of the Colombian Air Force.

The hijackers allowed government negotiators and a Roman Catholic priest to board while the plane sat on the tarmac. All passengers and crew were eventually freed unharmed before the hijackers, 42-year-old Porfirio Ramirez and his 22-year-old son, Linsen Ramirez, gave up and were arrested.

The older Ramirez boarded the plane in a wheelchair that was too large to pass through an airport metal detector, and he was not patted down by security agents, said Luis Octavio Rojas, director of the Florencia airport.

A statement late Monday from President Alvaro Uribe's office said the Civil Aviation authority must find out "what allowed someone to take advantage of his disabled condition to pass through the security checks ... with grenades."